New York State Pavilion from the 1964-1965 World's Fair (credit: Matthew Silva)

New York State Pavilion from the 1964-1965 World's Fair (credit: Matthew Silva)

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – A local filmmaker is trying to save the ruins of the New York State Pavilion from the 1964-65 World’s Fair in Queens.

In 1997, movie goers saw one of the disks atop the towers reveal itself to be a spaceship, take off, and then crash into the Unisphere in the movie “Men In Black.”

But an entire generation of New Yorkers might not know the spikey ruins in Flushing Meadows Corona Park were built to showcase the Empire State at the World’s Fair, documentarian Matthew Silva told WCBS 880’s Alex Silverman.

He’s raising money to produce the film and hopes to release it in time for the fair’s 50th anniversary next year.

“Hopefully, my film will just be an early point in kind of getting everybody up to speed on what’s been happening the last 50 years,” Silva said.

The city has studied options for the pavilion, but said it doesn’t have the money to do anything, Silverman reported.

Silva said a public-private partnership like the one that runs the High Line might be the key in this case.

According to Silva’s website, he says it’s important to keep certain things that link us to our past and cites a quoteattributed to Louise Huxtable that reads, “We will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.”